‘Euphoric and anxious’: Felicia Yap photographed at her publisher’s London office.
Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer

Felicia Yap was on her way to a ballroom dancing class when a question came into her head: “How do you solve a murder when you can only remember yesterday?” She wasn’t sure how to answer the question – but could not let it go. She practised with her dancing partner – who is “also my fiance” – and remembers a tango with lots of turns and spins – just like the unusual thriller she would go on to write.

In Yesterday there are two sorts of people: those who can only remember what happened yesterday (“monos”) and superior mortals who can also remember the day before yesterday (“duos”). They all depend on their iDiaries in lieu of a past. When Claire, a trusting “mono” wife, learns that her “duo” husband, Mark, has a mistress whose body was found drowned in the river, she seeks answers. But what does she know? What can she hope to remember? The thriller is an intriguing, philosophical page-turner that concludes: “We are all victims of the past we prefer.”

At 35, Yap is a phenomenon – her own past extraordinary. She looks like a dainty dancer and has been talent-scouted as a model. She grew up in a “tiny house” in Kuala Lumpur, the daughter of a banker – although the family was not well off. She affectionately recalls her father’s car, “an old, dusty brown Datsun with holes in the floor”. When I ask which past she prefers, it turns out to be a leading question. Yap studied biochemistry at Imperial College London and went on to become a researcher at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg. She then decided – extraordinarily – to jump tracks and became a Cambridge historian, researching the experiences of people in the east caught up in the second world war. Add to that her journalism for publications such as the Economist and Singapore’s Business Times – she is an astonishing chameleon.

I reasoned that if someone thinks I’m an alumna there, perhaps I should become one

But it is writing novels that makes Felicia happiest. When Yesterday was being auctioned, she remembers waiting in front of her computer – she was away, travelling – for news (Headline won with a six-figure sum): “I felt euphoric and anxious,” she says. She confirms – but only when pushed – that there is keen and ongoing competition for the film rights.

She is at pains to thank Richard Skinner, her tutor at the Faber Academy, and tells a revealing story about how she came to be on the course in the first place. Ordinarily she does not accept friends on Facebook unless she knows them. But she made an exception for a woman who looked unusually sympathetic. She sent her a message: “Have we met?” The woman explained she had mistaken Yap for a former classmate from the Faber Academy. “I reasoned that if someone thinks I’m an alumna there, perhaps I should become one. Perhaps it is written.” Malleable as a fictional character herself, Yap brims with alternatives. A rising star for sure – but will she stay a novelist? She volunteers that she is already working on a prequel to Yesterday. Whatever she chooses to do, tomorrow is sure to be dazzling.

Three more to watch

■ Travel writer and playwright Miranda Emmerson’s debut thriller Miss Treadway & the Field of Stars – about the disappearance of an American actress in 60s London – promises to be scintillating.

■ Mancunian poet and short-story writer Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From is a dystopian novel about a mother and baby who become refugees in the UK after a mysterious environmental crisis.

■ Irish writer Sally Rooney has had short stories published by Granta. Conversations With Friends is already much talked about as a high-risk, highbrow and intimate novel about the way we communicate.

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